I am still yet to see a single valid argument here for the addition of a so-called "Western Rite" into the praxis of the Orthodox Church here in North America.

It's not so-called, that is what it's called.

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Please address and respond to the following questions:

1. Why is a Western Rite needed here?

This is the wrong question to ask. Orthodoxy is not Utilitarian and interestingly enough, that question reeks of all that is currently wrong with "the West." It's not about what's "needed" it's about beauty and truth.

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2. What is wrong with the Eastern Rite?

Nothing. Some of us just don't want our rich spiritual heritage to be thrown into the crapshoot.

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3. Is this not Renovationism to "jump start" a Rite within the Orthodox Church that died out over 1,000 years ago?

It didn't die out. What in the world do you think the British and Roman Churches continued to use after the Schism? And it has been far less than 1,000. As an entire Rite, it's more like 700, and as far as liturgies go, there has never been a break within the Orthodox Church.

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4. Is not restoring something from a long, distant "ideal" past not part of the "Protestant Reformer" mentality? (Think of all the Protestant rhetoric about "restoring the New Testament Church" ... I find it very similar to the logic of "restoring" the Western Rite in Orthodoxy.

I know "Protestant" is a dirty word to you, but you obviously don't know much about their original "mentality" otherwise, you'd know that what they wanted to do was much needed. Unless you're completely unaware of the doctrinal innovations of the Roman Catholic Church...

I'll never understand this common mindset within anti-Western Rite people of hating any idea of "restoration" or "resurrection" when that is exactly what the Church is all about. You want to talk about being "utterly baffled" by something...

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5. Perhaps God let the Western Rite die out for a reason?

Again, it didn't die out.

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6. Why has the Orthodox Church of Finland not developed a "Western Rite" for former Lutherans?

Perhaps no Lutherans have approached them?

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A case for 'doxing up the Lutheran Liturgy could be made just about as firmly as those who "Orthodoxized" the Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer in the so-called "Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon."

Not sure who "the Cranmer" is, or what you think his relationship is to the Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon is (again, not "so-called" that is what it's called) but this is just another example of the historical ignorance and intellectual laziness of anti-Western Riters that people justly scoff at. You quite clearly haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.

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7. Perhaps the Finnish Orthodox think the best way to evangelize all those Lutherans is to stick with the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom?

If it works, God bless it!

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8. Lastly, the Tridentine Mass belongs to Rome.

All truth belongs to the Holy Orthodox Church.

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I have far too much respect and genuine charity for my Roman Catholic friends and brethren to insult them by trying to do an "Orthodox" version of their Mass.

That's nice of you.

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The Latin Mass belongs to Rome, regardless of whatever language it is translated into.

All truth belongs to the Holy Orthodox Church.

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Why should Orthodox people tamper with it?

"Tampering" is not the term I'd use when dealing with the expulsion of heresy, but perhaps that's because I take it seriously.

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Are we going to insert an Epiclesis into the Tridentine Mass?

Yep!

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If so, then it isn't the Tridentine Mass anymore.

Probably why we call it the Rite of St. Gregory and not "The Tridentine Mass."

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It isn't even Western anymore. We would have just "Byzantinized" it.

LOL

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9. Food for thought: If we can't use the Tridentine Mass in the Orthodox Church without tampering with it and changing it, why are we using it at all?

All truth belongs to the Holy Orthodox Church.

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Why not just stick with the Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil that formed the piety of our people for generations?

Because some people have their own legitimate heritage that formed the piety of Orthodox Saints for over a millennium and, unlike your very limited take on Orthodoxy, we believe that heritage rightfully belongs in the bosom of the Undivided Church of Christ.

Sleeper:

Thank you for your thoughts and response. While I don't agree with everything you said, I appreciate you being frank enough to state your position. While I cannot address all the points you made, I would like to address one thing:

You remarked, "I know "Protestant" is a dirty word to you, but you obviously don't know much about their original "mentality" otherwise, you'd know that what they wanted to do was much needed. Unless you're completely unaware of the doctrinal innovations of the Roman Catholic Church..." and you stated that "this is just another example of the historical ignorance and intellectual laziness of anti-Western Riters that people justly scoff at. You quite clearly haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

Reply: You would do well not to make assumptions about me. I am quite familiar with Protestantism and intimately familiar with Lutheranism and Reformation history. I have a Master's degree in history and taught Reformation history for over 6 years at the college level. I graduated from a Lutheran college. I have read Luther in the original German (by the way, he's better in German, and far more colorful too!). I spent 17 years in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and some of my best friends today are still Lutheran pastors whom I respect and with whom I often correspond. In addition to my graduate studies in history, I did language study in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and German. I can also read French and have read some of Calvin in the original French as well. We may have our disagreements and not see eye-to-eye on things. That's OK. But to say that I suffer from "historical ignorance" and "intellectual laziness" is going too far. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I am ignorant or lazy. In fact, I daresay you would find someone more informed on the theological nuances of the 16th century Protestant reformers than I.

Just off the top of my head I could tell you about Martin Luther and The Bondage of the Will (his most significant work, in his opinion), Phillip Melanchton, the author of the Augsburg Confession, Johann Staupitz (Luther's father confessor when he was an Augustinian monk and someone of whom Luther always spoke kindly), The Schmalkald Articles where a cranky Luther vents his spleen against the Pope calling the Bishop of Rome "the very Antichrist" (that's actually pretty mild for Luther, if you know his language), or the Marburg Colloquy where Luther and Zwingli sat down to chat about the Holy Eucharist and Luther refused to shake Zwingli's hand because Zwingli denied our Lord's Real Presence in the Eucharist. Then there's always John Calvin, who at the tender age of 24 thought he knew more than Holy Mother Church and all the Holy Fathers and authored his abominable "Institutes of the Christian Religion." And I haven't even mentioned anything yet about John Knox, Martin Bucer, Theodore Beza, Andreas Carlstadt, Johann Bugenhagen, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Cardinal Pole. Nor have I mentioned the origins of the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Formula of Concord, and the fights within the Church of England over the Book of Common Prayer.

I will grant you that Martin Luther was a Christian. Misguided at times, but still a Christian. I don't know how anyone can read the lives of John Calvin and John Knox and even think for a moment that they were Christians, though. Not with their hatred of the Church and especially their hatred of the Holy Eucharist.

I am still yet to see a single valid argument here for the addition of a so-called "Western Rite" into the praxis of the Orthodox Church here in North America.

The Russian Church Abroad has authorised the Western-rite, so I am duty bound to accept this decision. I do however share your misgivings about the place of and the so-called imperative or a Western-rite.[quoPlease address and respond to the following questions:

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1. Why is a Western Rite needed here?

There are some who say that the rite is needed for Western people who find the Byzantine too ethnic or exotic. I see this as a form of cultural phyletism. because the Liturgy of S. John Chrysostom is celebrated in Western vernacular languages all over the world and in Asian and other languages also. Bishop Kallistos of Diokeltia wrote:

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If we wish to help western persons joining Orthodoxy, the best way is to offer them the possibility of attending the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in the English language. There is nothing "oriental" or "ethnic" about this Liturgy. True, it was written in Greek and not in Latin; but then Plato and Sophocles wrote in Greek, yet we recognize them as part of our shared European culture. The same is true of St. John Chrysostom. We English can feel thoroughly at home in his Liturgy - as I know from my own experience.

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2. What is wrong with the Eastern Rite?

I think the Eastern-rite is really the Orthodox rite for all humanity. Christianity is Eastern - our roots and culture and history lay in the Middle East. Fr. Alexander Schmemann writes:

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And then the last question: is it quite correct to define our rite as "Eastern" and therefore "foreign to all the Western Christians have known" to quote the Edict? I would like to suggest a rather sharp distinction between "Eastern" and "oriental". No doubt there are many oriental features, oriental ingredients in our liturgical life. No doubt also, that for many Orthodox this "orientalism" seems to be the essential element. But we know that it is not essential and we know that progressively all these "orientalisms" are being eliminated in a very natural and spontaneous process of adjustment of our cult to the American life. But then what remains and what can be described as "Eastern" is nothing else but the Biblical and the Patristic "content" of our liturgy. It is essentially and structurally Biblical and Patristic, and therefore, it is "eastern" in exactly the same measure in which the Bible and the Fathers, or rather, the whole Christianity can be termed "Eastern". But have we not proclaimed time and again in all our encounters with our Western brothers that it is this "East" precisely that constitutes the common and the catholic heritage of the Church and can supply us with a common language which has been lost or distorted? The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom or the Easter Canon of St. John of Damascus, are, I believe, much closer to that common and Catholic language of the Church than anything else in any Christian tradition. And I cannot think of any word or phrase in these services that would be "foreign" to a Western Christian and would not be capable of expressing his faith and his experience, if the latter would be genuinely Orthodox . . .

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3. Is this not Renovationism to "jump start" a Rite within the Orthodox Church that died out over 1,000 years ago?

I liken it to taking some DNA and reconstructing a prehistoric dinosaur. It arguably is a break with a massive break of hundreds of years of the West being immersed in heterodoxy.

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4. Is not restoring something from a long, distant "ideal" past not part of the "Protestant Reformer" mentality? (Think of all the Protestant rhetoric about "restoring the New Testament Church" . .. I find it very similar to the logic of "restoring" the Western Rite in Orthodoxy.

Well there is a certain Anglo-Catholic tradition, taken up by vagantes of picking and choosing ecclesiastically rather than submitting to the Church and tradition. There is a risk of this occurring with the WR. "I can use the 1549 Anglican mass with an Orthodox epiclesis but the Anglican matins and evensong are OK ...." Where does this end?

If you want to see the future of “Orthodoxy” in the vision of those making the most enthusiastic noise about “Western Rites”, you have only to look around you at the crumbling pillars of Rome and her children. The very religiosity into which they wish to initiate us is being boiled down, and our participation will be courted as the ‘recovery’ of something lost (merely an earlier stage in the process) and the ‘purification’ of what was fundamentally fine (a different stew than our fathers ever knew). We are being asked to embrace a new Orthodoxy, a traditional Orthodoxy, and a continuing Orthodoxy, all within the same confession. We are being asked to become Episcopalians in culture and Orthodox in name.

So-called “Western Orthodoxy” is merely a symbol of this process and a symptom of the new order being formed, a different ecclesiology, a pseudo-ekklesia. In and of itself, it certainly has significant problems, many of which have been rather universally recognized [survey]. In terms of what its progress is telling us about the contemporary Orthodox movement (and the very fact that it is movement, and can no longer be considered static or a state – and so now has much in common with the Episcopalian experience) — in those terms, it points to much larger problems that are as yet, just as with the Episcopalians, not widely or fully acknowledged. This despite the countless warnings of monastic communities, ascetic saints, Orthodox prophets, and holy martyrs. Lord have mercy.

You’d think the Episcopalians would like what these folk are up to, but anyone that has suffered what many of them have, through this process, could only look at it with sadness, and perhaps a will to help us fight it. The ones chasing it like a grail are those ‘true believers’ who still think the key problems are gays and women priests, and miss the point entirely. For them, an Episcopalianized Orthodoxy, especially a Western Orthodoxy, is a mirage, and they’re greedily gulping down what many of us recognize as sand. The sad thing is that we are feeding it to them, in the name of disseminating the Faith. This can only happen when we have begun to lose our Faith the same way they did: Quite literally by losing The Faith.

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5. Perhaps God let the Western Rite die out for a reason?

Maybe He has allowed its rebirth by DNA grafting also?

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6. Why has the Orthodox Church of Finland not developed a "Western Rite" for former Lutherans? A case for 'doxing up the Lutheran Liturgy could be made just about as firmly as those who "Orthodoxized" the Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer in the so-called "Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon."

There is no reason. Take the Anglican prayer book offices of Matins and Evensong that replaced the 7 breviary hours. They were contrived in a non-Catholic Zwingli-an spirit by Cranmer. I cannot understand why the WR don't simply go back to the proper sevenfold pre-Reformation monastic hours.

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7. Perhaps the Finnish Orthodox think the best way to evangelize all those Lutherans is to stick with the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom?

8. Lastly, the Tridentine Mass belongs to Rome. I have far too much respect and genuine charity for my Roman Catholic friends and brethren to insult them by trying to do an "Orthodox" version of their Mass. The Latin Mass belongs to Rome, regardless of whatever language it is translated into. Why should Orthodox people tamper with it? Are we going to insert an Epiclesis into the Tridentine Mass? If so, then it isn't the Tridentine Mass anymore. It isn't even Western anymore. We would have just "Byzantinized" it.

If you have to tamper with the Western Latin Catholic or Anglican masses in order to make them Orthodox, there has been something fundamentally rotten in these liturgical uses since day 1. Why correct an error when you can use what the Church has right, has made right? Why not use the Byzantine liturgy in English/French/Japanese/Indonesian/Korean as happens in ROCOR now?

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9. Food for thought: If we can't use the Tridentine Mass in the Orthodox Church without tampering with it and changing it, why are we using it at all? Why not just stick with the Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil that formed the piety of our people for generations?

Logically a Western-rite Orthodoxy needs to be a sui juris or autonomous Church within Orthodoxy, with its own bishops, proper theological colleges for clerical formation and the opportunity to be a Western Orthodox Church. In my view if you are going to have a Western-rite Orthodoxy, make it an autonomous Church with its own bishops, synod etc. Of course the falling away from orthodoxy of the French autonomous WR Church after the repose of St. John of Shanghai in 1966 is a warning of what could happen also.

The problem is that right now they are perhaps 5% of converts to Orthodoxy worldwide with 95% being Eastern-rite. If you want proof look at the online clerical directory of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia in the US, in Great Britain, in Australia. You will see many priests and monastics, deacons, subdeacons and readers - all converts - serving in English and Slavonic. This is mirrored in the numbers of Western convert laity. So you have Eastern Orthodoxy - missionary and evangelical and successful at this competing with the Western-rite for converts.

In my own country after almost 14 years of Western-rite missionary work they have 1 priest and 1 priest-monk who splits his time between the UK and Australia, 1 mission with at best half a dozen people at mass, and if you look at the Eastern-rite it is a different picture. It seems to me that Eastern-rite Orthodoxy can be recognised by Western seekers as a living tradition, as a real tradition, albeit ethnic in many ways. Western people looking at Western-rite Orthodoxy see a reconstruction of DNA, with no organic history before the latter part of the 20th century and have no real connection with Sarum/Celtic so-called pre schism Western spirituality and history. You can at least go into a Greek or Russian parish church and find community, continuity, generation after generation of Orthodox believers. In the WR it is starting from scratch, a much harder proposition.

Dear Subdeacon David:

Thank you, sir, for such a thoughtful and articulate post! You elegantly stated what I was trying to say but you did it in a much better and clearer manner than I ever could. I think you have a gift for teaching.

I am still yet to see a single valid argument here for the addition of a so-called "Western Rite" into the praxis of the Orthodox Church here in North America.

The Russian Church Abroad has authorised the Western-rite, so I am duty bound to accept this decision. I do however share your misgivings about the place of and the so-called imperative or a Western-rite.

I'm not completely familiar with ROCOR's approach to the Western Rite, but I don't think "imperative" is generally the way most Western Orthodox would describe what we hope to accomplish.

No one is saying that they won't convert, or won't worship, lest the Orthodox bow to their demands to have a Western Rite. That's nonsense. We just aren't going to let 1300 years of beautiful, life-giving tradition be tossed aside because of the accidents of history, and are of the firm conviction that there is nothing inherently superior in the Byzantine Rite compared to that which is found in our own tradition. There are no ultimatums being given here.

Again, it's truly baffling to me that some Orthodox Christians have such a small, narrow understanding of the Church. So much so that they think only Eastern expressions of the Universal Faith can adequately praise God.

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There are some who say that the rite is needed for Western people who find the Byzantine too ethnic or exotic.

And there are more who want to see the rich tradition they inherited brought into the bosom of the Church.

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I see this as a form of cultural phyletism. because the Liturgy of S. John Chrysostom is celebrated in Western vernacular languages all over the world and in Asian and other languages also.

C'mon Subdeacon, it's much more than language. In fact, that's not even relevant.

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Bishop Kallistos of Diokeltia wrote:

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If we wish to help western persons joining Orthodoxy, the best way is to offer them the possibility of attending the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in the English language. There is nothing "oriental" or "ethnic" about this Liturgy. True, it was written in Greek and not in Latin; but then Plato and Sophocles wrote in Greek, yet we recognize them as part of our shared European culture. The same is true of St. John Chrysostom. We English can feel thoroughly at home in his Liturgy - as I know from my own experience.

Indeed! This has no bearing, however, on the aims of the Western Rite.

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I think the Eastern-rite is really the Orthodox rite for all humanity. Christianity is Eastern - our roots and culture and history lay in the Middle East. Fr. Alexander Schmemann writes:

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And then the last question: is it quite correct to define our rite as "Eastern" and therefore "foreign to all the Western Christians have known" to quote the Edict? I would like to suggest a rather sharp distinction between "Eastern" and "oriental". No doubt there are many oriental features, oriental ingredients in our liturgical life. No doubt also, that for many Orthodox this "orientalism" seems to be the essential element. But we know that it is not essential and we know that progressively all these "orientalisms" are being eliminated in a very natural and spontaneous process of adjustment of our cult to the American life. But then what remains and what can be described as "Eastern" is nothing else but the Biblical and the Patristic "content" of our liturgy. It is essentially and structurally Biblical and Patristic, and therefore, it is "eastern" in exactly the same measure in which the Bible and the Fathers, or rather, the whole Christianity can be termed "Eastern". But have we not proclaimed time and again in all our encounters with our Western brothers that it is this "East" precisely that constitutes the common and the catholic heritage of the Church and can supply us with a common language which has been lost or distorted? The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom or the Easter Canon of St. John of Damascus, are, I believe, much closer to that common and Catholic language of the Church than anything else in any Christian tradition. And I cannot think of any word or phrase in these services that would be "foreign" to a Western Christian and would not be capable of expressing his faith and his experience, if the latter would be genuinely Orthodox . . .

Again, this might be an issue for some, and it may have been more important early in the history of the Western Orthodox restoration, when hardly any Orthodox Churches served in English, but by and large it's not the "Eastern is foreign/exotic" mentality that drives the Western Rite. It's about the restoration of the Western Christian heritage to the Undivided Church.

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I liken it to taking some DNA and reconstructing a prehistoric dinosaur.

Which is probably the root of your problems. This is not even close to what's being done within canonical Orthodoxy.

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It arguably is a break with a massive break of hundreds of years of the West being immersed in heterodoxy.

Define "immersed." Do you have particular examples in mind?

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Well there is a certain Anglo-Catholic tradition, taken up by vagantes of picking and choosing ecclesiastically rather than submitting to the Church and tradition. There is a risk of this occurring with the WR. "I can use the 1549 Anglican mass with an Orthodox epiclesis but the Anglican matins and evensong are OK ...."

I'm not aware of anyone using the 1549 Anglican Mass, although I think parts of it were used for ROCOR's "English Liturgy."

As far as Anglican Matins and Evensong, the point of using these is because that's what people were using. I know I've told you this a 100 times Subdeacon, and it obviously either makes no sense to you, or you just don't understand it, but the canonical Western Rite is not about setting the clock back 1,000 years. It is not about "resurrecting DNA."

Allow me to try and clarify things a bit:

The canonical Western Rite is the blessing of the Western Christian heritage, as it has been handed down to us today. The notion that the ancient Western Orthodox expression of the Faith was "lost" or "died" is a completely false one. The truth is that the Western expression continued to be used and developed, albeit by Christians who were no longer part of the visible Orthodox Communion. Of course, as one would expect, certain accretions occurred and certain essentials were discarded, so some correction/supplementation was necessary. But rites are living things, and the Orthodox Church understands this, which is why they adapted existing liturgies, and existing practices, rather than indulging in "liturgical archaeology" and the like.

In a nutshell, canonical Western Orthodoxy is the blessing of the historical Western Rites, as those rites have been developed and handed down to us today, with the intention of assuming as much of that heritage as possible.

There's not much more to it than that. Some might point to certain elements and cry, "That's post-Schism!" to which we have to reply, "That's not the point!"

Orthodoxy has the power to assume and bless all that is true and beautiful, regardless of where it came from. Many seem to forget this.

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Where does this end?

It ends where the Bishop says it ends.

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5. Perhaps God let the Western Rite die out for a reason?

Maybe He has allowed its rebirth by DNA grafting also?

Doubtful, since this nowhere occurring within canonical Orthodoxy.

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6. Why has the Orthodox Church of Finland not developed a "Western Rite" for former Lutherans? A case for 'doxing up the Lutheran Liturgy could be made just about as firmly as those who "Orthodoxized" the Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer in the so-called "Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon."

There is no reason. Take the Anglican prayer book offices of Matins and Evensong that replaced the 7 breviary hours. They were contrived in a non-Catholic Zwingli-an spirit by Cranmer. I cannot understand why the WR don't simply go back to the proper sevenfold pre-Reformation monastic hours.

We could. No one is insisting that we use Matins and Evensong, it's just that we've been blessed by our bishops to do so, and many of us find them to be a great fit.

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If you have to tamper with the Western Latin Catholic or Anglican masses in order to make them Orthodox, there has been something fundamentally rotten in these liturgical uses since day 1.

Methinks there are a number of Saints who'd like to have a chat with you about this one...

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Why correct an error when you can use what the Church has right, has made right? Why not use the Byzantine liturgy in English/French/Japanese/Indonesian/Korean as happens in ROCOR now?

That's not the point and you know it.

Tikhon29605 had a "food for thought" post earlier, so I'd like to put one forward too. This is how a friend put it:

Recent Orthodox Saints Who Supported the Western Rite:

St. Tikhon (Bellavin)St. Raphael of Brooklyn (Hawaweeny)St. Nicholas of JapanRussian New-MartyrsSt. John the Wonderworker (Maximovitch)

This omits St. John of Chicago (Kochurov), who accompanied St. Tikhon on many missionary journeys to Episcopalian churches. St. John could be assumed to support his hierarch's Western Rite initiative -- but to my knowledge he did not specifically say so.

This list also overlooks the uncanonized divine healer Dom Denis Chambault, a holy monk who celebrated the Benedictine monastic office and the Liturgy of St. Gregory in France under the patronage of St. John the Wonderworker.

Thank you for your thoughts and response. While I don't agree with everything you said, I appreciate you being frank enough to state your position. While I cannot address all the points you made, I would like to address one thing:

You remarked, "I know "Protestant" is a dirty word to you, but you obviously don't know much about their original "mentality" otherwise, you'd know that what they wanted to do was much needed. Unless you're completely unaware of the doctrinal innovations of the Roman Catholic Church..." and you stated that "this is just another example of the historical ignorance and intellectual laziness of anti-Western Riters that people justly scoff at. You quite clearly haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

Reply: You would do well not to make assumptions about me. I am quite familiar with Protestantism and intimately familiar with Lutheranism and Reformation history. I have a Master's degree in history and taught Reformation history for over 6 years at the college level. I graduated from a Lutheran college. I have read Luther in the original German (by the way, he's better in German, and far more colorful too!). I spent 17 years in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and some of my best friends today are still Lutheran pastors whom I respect and with whom I often correspond. In addition to my graduate studies in history, I did language study in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and German. I can also read French and have read some of Calvin in the original French as well. We may have our disagreements and not see eye-to-eye on things. That's OK. But to say that I suffer from "historical ignorance" and "intellectual laziness" is going too far. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I am ignorant or lazy. In fact, I daresay you would find someone more informed on the theological nuances of the 16th century Protestant reformers than I.

Just off the top of my head I could tell you about Martin Luther and The Bondage of the Will (his most significant work, in his opinion), Phillip Melanchton, the author of the Augsburg Confession, Johann Staupitz (Luther's father confessor when he was an Augustinian monk and someone of whom Luther always spoke kindly), The Schmalkald Articles where a cranky Luther vents his spleen against the Pope calling the Bishop of Rome "the very Antichrist" (that's actually pretty mild for Luther, if you know his language), or the Marburg Colloquy where Luther and Zwingli sat down to chat about the Holy Eucharist and Luther refused to shake Zwingli's hand because Zwingli denied our Lord's Real Presence in the Eucharist. Then there's always John Calvin, who at the tender age of 24 thought he knew more than Holy Mother Church and all the Holy Fathers and authored his abominable "Institutes of the Christian Religion." And I haven't even mentioned anything yet about John Knox, Martin Bucer, Theodore Beza, Andreas Carlstadt, Johann Bugenhagen, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Cardinal Pole. Nor have I mentioned the origins of the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Formula of Concord, and the fights within the Church of England over the Book of Common Prayer.

I will grant you that Martin Luther was a Christian. Misguided at times, but still a Christian. I don't know how anyone can read the lives of John Calvin and John Knox and even think for a moment that they were Christians, though. Not with their hatred of the Church and especially their hatred of the Holy Eucharist.

Again, thank you for your response.

My apologies, I wasn't trying to make a sweeping generalization about you! It's just that, anyone who thinks the Rite of St. Tikhon is the same thing as the 1549 BCP quite obviously doesn't know much about the subsequent development of the original BCP by the Elizabethans, Caroline Divines, Non-Jurors, Scotch, Anglo-Catholics, etc.

This is a common problem. People hear "Anglican" and "Book of Common Prayer" and that the Orthodox Church "only" corrected the Epiclesis and removed the filioque, when the reason that was the "only" thing that was done (far from it actually) is because by the time the Rite of St. Tikhon was being created, most of the work of "Orthodoxizing" it had already been done in the subsequent centuries leading up the the 1928 American BCP (which is what the Rite of St. Tikhon is actually based upon) by these very knowledgeable people, some of whom formally sought union with the Orthodox Church.

So again, I apologize, but if you're familiar with the Rite of St. Tikhon and the 1549 BCP, and can still think that they're the same thing, I just find that hard to believe.

I am still yet to see a single valid argument here for the addition of a so-called "Western Rite" into the praxis of the Orthodox Church here in North America.

It's here. It has been for over a century. After a half century of false starts, the remnants came home and have been part of the praxis of hte Orthodox Church here in North America for over the last fifty years. A century ago is back when Orthodxo praxis of one hierarchy in the land ruled the day.

Because here is in the West. The cultrure (outside of Alaska) is Western, and part of the West.

Because the Church is Catholic: "From the rising to the setting of the sun the Name of the Lord will be praised." That includes the West.

Because the Church is Apostolic. It is sent to the West to baptize it, not easternize it.

Because the Church is One: Popes SS. Clement, Victor, Damasus, Leo, Gregory, Martin, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Lawrence etc. etc. etc. who celebrated the Western-not Eastern-rites of Orthodoxy did not go into schism in 1054. If we cannot claim their patrimony, we are not the Church of the Fathers.

4. Is not restoring something from a long, distant "ideal" past not part of the "Protestant Reformer" mentality? (Think of all the Protestant rhetoric about "restoring the New Testament Church" ... I find it very similar to the logic of "restoring" the Western Rite in Orthodoxy.

You are finding something that isn't there.

This mentiality of "one Orthodox rite" is relatively new: a little over 800 years ago, each Patriarchate having its rite was the rule.

The idea of defining Tradition as "what my grandparents did" is not an Orthodox one. Witness the Nikonian reforms (and no, the Protestants were not involved in that).

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Although the synods of Bulgaria, Servia, and Rumania have a certain dependence on the State (whose sanction is necessary for the promulgation of their edicts), there is not in their case anything like the shameless Erastianism of Russia and Greece. Between these two the only question is whether it be more advantageous for the Church to be ruled by an irresponsible tyrant or a Balkan Parliament. Lastly, it may be noticed, the church government by synod is a principle destined to flourish among the Orthodox. The secular governments of Orthodox countries encourage it and approve of it, for obvious reasons. It makes all the complicated questions of church establishment and endowment in the new Balkan States comparatively easy to solve; it has a fine air of democracy, constitutionalism, parliamentary government, that appeals enormously to people just escaped from the Turk and full of such notions. It seems then that the old patriarchal idea will linger on at Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem (though even here, in its original homes, it is getting modified in a constitutional direction), but that all new movement in the Orthodox Church will be more and more towards the principles borrowed by Peter the Great from Lutheranism. The vital argument against Holy Directing Synods is their opposition to the old tradition, to the strictly monarchic system of the Church of the Fathers. Strange that this argument should be ignored by people who boast so confidently of their unswerving fidelity to antiquity. "Our Church knows no developments", they told Mr. Palmer triumphantly in Russia. One could easily make a considerable list of Orthodox developments in answer. And one of the most obvious examples would be the system of Holy Synods. What, one might ask, would their Fathers have said of national Churches governed by committees of bishops chosen by the State and controlled by Government officials?

Perhaps God let the Czar abolish the patriarch for a reason? Perhaps God let the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be reduced to an agent of the Ottoman state for a reason. Maybe God let the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem be reduced to suffragans to the Phanar for a reason. So I guess we should abolish all the patriarchates and have their primates confined into a curia at the Phanar, servants of the Turkish Republic.

6. Why has the Orthodox Church of Finland not developed a "Western Rite" for former Lutherans? A case for 'doxing up the Lutheran Liturgy could be made just about as firmly as those who "Orthodoxized" the Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer in the so-called "Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon."

It could. The Eastern rite, however, was the first to evangelize Finland, from Karelia to the north of Sápmi/Lapland, and is native to Fennoscandia.

7. Perhaps the Finnish Orthodox think the best way to evangelize all those Lutherans is to stick with the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom?

Perhaps their overlords in the Phanar won't allow evangelizing all those Lutherans and Scandinavians .

The Phanariots in Scandinavia are dead (and I mean dead) set against evangelizing the North. When the various groups got together and organized a pan Orthodox jurisdiction in Sweden, and placed it under the Phanariots, there response was to turn it into a Greek jurisdiciton, and telling the others to form their own ethnic enclaves in Sweden. When the Nordik Catholic Church approached to be received into Orthodoxy, the Phanariots shut the door in their face: the Phanariot bishop stating that receving them would indicate "that Orthodoxy was for Scandinavians." The horror! The NCC ended up under the Polish National Catholics (btw, that same Phanariot bishop harrasses Eastern missions too. Wonder if there is a connection ;0).

I'm not sure if they have even bothered to convene their Episcopal Assembly yet.

8. Lastly, the Tridentine Mass belongs to Rome. I have far too much respect and genuine charity for my Roman Catholic friends and brethren to insult them by trying to do an "Orthodox" version of their Mass.

But you are quite comfortable with damning the whole Western Patriarchate to hell. Interesting.

How about some of that respect and genuine charity for your fellow Orthodox (you are Orhodox, no?).

The Latin Mass belongs to Rome, regardless of whatever language it is translated into.

Are you consistent in recognizing the rights of herestics and schismatics to Orthodox sees? Do you recognize the Latin supreme pontiff Benedict as Peter?

The Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory belongs to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Are you saying you recognize P. Benedict XVI as the head of that Church?

Btw, the Latin mass really belongs to North Africa (and hence the Pope of Alexandria) whence it came: Rome used Greek exclusively until c. 190, and did not replace it until c. 380.

And speaking of belonging, you are aware that all of the Orthodox Churches of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Romania and the Czech Lands and Slovakia belonged to Rome before the iconoclast emperors took them and gave them to the iconoclast patriarch of Constantinople. Should we give them back to the Vatican?

Oh, it is worse than that: the Roman one is the only one that doesn't emphasize the epiclesis. As the "Catholic Encyclopia, imprematur nihil obstat" confesses:

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It is certain that all the old liturgies contained such a prayer. For instance, the Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, immediately after the recital of the words of Institution, goes on to the Anamnesis — "Remembering therefore His Passion..." — in which occur the words: "thou, the God who lackest nothing, being pleased with them (the Offerings) for the honour of Thy Christ, and sending down Thy Holy Spirit on this sacrifice, the witness of the Passion of the Lord Jesus, to manifest (opos apophene) this bread as the Body of Thy Christ and this chalice as the Blood of Thy Christ..." (Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, I, 21). So the Greek and Syrian Liturgies of St. James (ibid., 54, 88-89), the Alexandrine Liturgies (ibid., 134, 179), the Abyssinian Rite (ibid., 233), those of the Nestorians (ibid., 287) and Armenians (ibid., 439). The Epiklesis in the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is said thus: "We offer to Thee this reasonable and unbloody sacrifice; and we beg Thee, we ask Thee, we pray Thee that Thou, sending down Thy Holy Spirit on us and on these present gifts" (the Deacon says: "Bless, Sir the holy bread") "make this bread into the Precious Body of Thy Christ" (Deacon: "Amen. Bless, Sir, the holy chalice"): "and that which is in this chalice, the Precious Blood of Thy Christ" (Deacon: "Amen. Bless, Sir, both"), "changing [metabalon] them by Thy Holy Spirit" (Deacon: "Amen, Amen, Amen."). (Brightman, op. cit., I 386-387).

Nor is there any doubt that the Western rites at one time contained similar invocations. The Gallican Liturgy had variable forms according to the feast. That for the Circumcision was: "Hæc nos, Domine, instituta et præcepta retinentes suppliciter oramus uti hoc sacrificium suscipere et benedicere et sanctificare digneris: ut fiat nobis eucharistia legitima in tuo Filiique tui nomine et Spiritus sancti, in transformationem corporis ac sanguinis domini Dei nostri Jesu Christi unigeniti tui, per quem omnia creas..." (Duchesne, "Origines du culte chrétien", 2nd ed., Paris, 1898, p. 208, taken from St. Germanus of Paris, d. 576). There are many allusions to the Gallican Invocation, for instance St. Isidore of Seville (De eccl. officiis, I, 15, etc.). The Roman Rite too at one time had an Epiklesis after the words of Institution. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) refers to it plainly: "Quomodo ad divini mysterii consecrationem coelestis Spiritus adveniet, si sacerdos...criminosis plenus actionibus reprobetur?" ("Epp. Fragm.", vii, in Thiel, "Epp. Rom. Pont.", I, 486). Watterich (Der Konsekrationsmoment im h. Abendmahl, 1896, pp. 133 sq.) brings other evidences of the old Roman Invocation. he (p. 166) and Drews (Entstehungsgesch. des Kanons, 1902, p. 28) think that several secrets in the Leonine Sacramentary were originally Invocations (see article CANON OF THE MASS). Of the essential clause left out — our prayer: "Supplices te rogamus" (Duchesne, op. cit., 173-5). It seems that an early insistence on the words of Institution as the form of Consecration (see, for instance, Pseudo-Ambrose, "De Mysteriis", IX, 52, and "De Sacramentis", IV, 4, 14-15, 23; St. Augustine, Sermon 227) led in the West to the neglect and mutilation of the Epiklesis.

And then Ultramontanism raises its head:

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The Catholic Church has decided the question by making us kneel and adore the Holy Eucharist immediately after the words of Institution, and by letting her old Invocation practically disappear.

In any event, why do you think that the supplices te rogamus prayer was included in the old Latin mass? Surely you don't believe that it is literally calling for an angel to come and take the gifts away into heaven, do you? I notice that you have not responded to any of my arguments about it up until this point.

9. Food for thought: If we can't use the Tridentine Mass in the Orthodox Church without tampering with it and changing it, why are we using it at all?

Fast from such food.

Food for thought: since the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil and the liturgics with them (e.g. the iconstasis) did not weather the heresies that sprung up without tampering and changing, why are we using them at all?

Why not just stick with the Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil that formed the piety of our people for generations?

The WRO already has formed the piety of generations of Orthodox.

In Alexandria and Antioch, the Divine Liturgies of St. James and St. Mark formed the piety of St. Anthony, Pope St. Athanasius, Pope St. Cyril, Patriarch St. Ignatius, Patriarch St. Theophilus, St. John of Damascus, etc. and the generations before and since them, until suppresed by the absentee "Patriarch of Antoch" Balsamon, who never set foot AFAIK outside of Constantinople. Why shouldn't we have stuck with them, rather than go with the rites of the upstart on the Bosphoros?

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Thank you for your thoughts and response. While I don't agree with everything you said, I appreciate you being frank enough to state your position. While I cannot address all the points you made, I would like to address one thing:

You remarked, "I know "Protestant" is a dirty word to you, but you obviously don't know much about their original "mentality" otherwise, you'd know that what they wanted to do was much needed. Unless you're completely unaware of the doctrinal innovations of the Roman Catholic Church..." and you stated that "this is just another example of the historical ignorance and intellectual laziness of anti-Western Riters that people justly scoff at. You quite clearly haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

Reply: You would do well not to make assumptions about me. I am quite familiar with Protestantism and intimately familiar with Lutheranism and Reformation history. I have a Master's degree in history and taught Reformation history for over 6 years at the college level. I graduated from a Lutheran college. I have read Luther in the original German (by the way, he's better in German, and far more colorful too!). I spent 17 years in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and some of my best friends today are still Lutheran pastors whom I respect and with whom I often correspond. In addition to my graduate studies in history, I did language study in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and German. I can also read French and have read some of Calvin in the original French as well. We may have our disagreements and not see eye-to-eye on things. That's OK. But to say that I suffer from "historical ignorance" and "intellectual laziness" is going too far. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I am ignorant or lazy. In fact, I daresay you would find someone more informed on the theological nuances of the 16th century Protestant reformers than I.

We are not interested in 16th century Protestant reformers. We are interested in the Orthodox Faith and praxis of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Johann Staupitz (Luther's father confessor when he was an Augustinian monk and someone of whom Luther always spoke kindly), The Schmalkald Articles where a cranky Luther vents his spleen against the Pope calling the Bishop of Rome "the very Antichrist" (that's actually pretty mild for Luther, if you know his language), or the Marburg Colloquy where Luther and Zwingli sat down to chat about the Holy Eucharist and Luther refused to shake Zwingli's hand because Zwingli denied our Lord's Real Presence in the Eucharist. Then there's always John Calvin, who at the tender age of 24 thought he knew more than Holy Mother Church and all the Holy Fathers and authored his abominable "Institutes of the Christian Religion." And I haven't even mentioned anything yet about John Knox, Martin Bucer, Theodore Beza, Andreas Carlstadt, Johann Bugenhagen, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Cardinal Pole. Nor have I mentioned the origins of the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Formula of Concord, and the fights within the Church of England over the Book of Common Prayer.

How about the the Correspondence of the Utraquists and Constantinople? Of the Tubingen Theologians and Pat. Jeremiah II, and between the non-Jurors and the Patriarchs of the East? And the findings of the Holy Governing Synod of Russia on the Anglican rites, and the Greco-Russian committee correspondance?

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

One reason maybe it hasn't grown is very few are aware of it's existence. When I started inquiry into orthodoxy I took instructions at a Greek church. No mention of a western rite. After attending a Liturgy I knew how people felt attending the Latin mass if they weren't RC. I am going to my first western rite liturgy tomorrow. If I become orthodox and a church I am attending is in a situation where they are no longer in communion with world orthodoxy, would naturally find another jurisdiction. I am RC by heritage but this does not include the abortion which is the novus ordo. Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine. Is any one on this site going to say the western rite is not in communion with the Greek, Russian, ect. If so tell me and save me a trip. The only thing making me hesitate about converting is the troubling divisions I read about on this website and major differences for example how each jurisdiction accepts converts into orthodoxy. Pray for me I love what I have seen in Orthodoxy and need to make a prayerful decision.

One reason maybe it hasn't grown is very few are aware of it's existence. When I started inquiry into orthodoxy I took instructions at a Greek church. No mention of a western rite. After attending a Liturgy I knew how people felt attending the Latin mass if they weren't RC. I am going to my first western rite liturgy tomorrow. If I become orthodox and a church I am attending is in a situation where they are no longer in communion with world orthodoxy, would naturally find another jurisdiction. I am RC by heritage but this does not include the abortion which is the novus ordo. Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine. Is any one on this site going to say the western rite is not in communion with the Greek, Russian, ect. If so tell me and save me a trip. The only thing making me hesitate about converting is the troubling divisions I read about on this website and major differences for example how each jurisdiction accepts converts into orthodoxy. Pray for me I love what I have seen in Orthodoxy and need to make a prayerful decision.

Lord, have mercy!

Without knowing what Church you plan to attend, I can't say for sure if they're canonical, but rest assured that all canonical Western Rite parishes are in full communion with the worldwide Orthodox Church.

One reason maybe it hasn't grown is very few are aware of it's existence. When I started inquiry into orthodoxy I took instructions at a Greek church. No mention of a western rite. After attending a Liturgy I knew how people felt attending the Latin mass if they weren't RC. I am going to my first western rite liturgy tomorrow. If I become orthodox and a church I am attending is in a situation where they are no longer in communion with world orthodoxy, would naturally find another jurisdiction. I am RC by heritage but this does not include the abortion which is the novus ordo. Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine. Is any one on this site going to say the western rite is not in communion with the Greek, Russian, ect. If so tell me and save me a trip. The only thing making me hesitate about converting is the troubling divisions I read about on this website and major differences for example how each jurisdiction accepts converts into orthodoxy. Pray for me I love what I have seen in Orthodoxy and need to make a prayerful decision.

"Byzantine" culture is Roman culture. it is simply a different expression of that Roman culture. Remember, St Constantine the Great was from Great Britain, and as ialmisry pointed out, the Roman Church used Greek until well after the Resurrection and Ascension.

As for the divisions you see, you must remember that we are the Church. Although the Church is perfect, we as individuals are not so. It is in Lent, and the demons will always attack us. We have survived much and we, the Church, will persevere.

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“Find the door of your heart, and you will discover it is the door to the kingdom of God.” - St. John Chrysostom

One reason maybe it hasn't grown is very few are aware of it's existence. When I started inquiry into orthodoxy I took instructions at a Greek church. No mention of a western rite. After attending a Liturgy I knew how people felt attending the Latin mass if they weren't RC. I am going to my first western rite liturgy tomorrow. If I become orthodox and a church I am attending is in a situation where they are no longer in communion with world orthodoxy, would naturally find another jurisdiction. I am RC by heritage but this does not include the abortion which is the novus ordo. Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine. Is any one on this site going to say the western rite is not in communion with the Greek, Russian, ect. If so tell me and save me a trip. The only thing making me hesitate about converting is the troubling divisions I read about on this website and major differences for example how each jurisdiction accepts converts into orthodoxy. Pray for me I love what I have seen in Orthodoxy and need to make a prayerful decision.

Don't worry. No one here is going to say that Western Rite is not in communion. The whole point of the gripe on the anti-WR side is that they are in communion and there's not anything the gripers can do about it, save gripe some more. That's all it is, sour gripes.

Full disclosure: I've never been a member of, or even attended any of the Western Rite parishes, and have absolutely nothing to do with this argument, aside from the fact that I am not against the Western Rite. I've been reading this thread because it goes so well with popcorn (non-buttered, of course).

(Of course, I'm referring to Anticohian and ROCOR Western Rite, not any of the hundred vagante or schismatic Western Rites. )

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"Funny," said Lancelot, "how the people who can't pray say that prayers are not answered, however much the people who can pray say they are." TH White

I am still yet to see a single valid argument here for the addition of a so-called "Western Rite" into the praxis of the Orthodox Church here in North America.

It's here. It has been for over a century. After a half century of false starts, the remnants came home and have been part of the praxis of hte Orthodox Church here in North America for over the last fifty years. A century ago is back when Orthodxo praxis of one hierarchy in the land ruled the day.

Because here is in the West. The cultrure (outside of Alaska) is Western, and part of the West.

Because the Church is Catholic: "From the rising to the setting of the sun the Name of the Lord will be praised." That includes the West.

Because the Church is Apostolic. It is sent to the West to baptize it, not easternize it.

Because the Church is One: Popes SS. Clement, Victor, Damasus, Leo, Gregory, Martin, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Lawrence etc. etc. etc. who celebrated the Western-not Eastern-rites of Orthodoxy did not go into schism in 1054. If we cannot claim their patrimony, we are not the Church of the Fathers.

4. Is not restoring something from a long, distant "ideal" past not part of the "Protestant Reformer" mentality? (Think of all the Protestant rhetoric about "restoring the New Testament Church" ... I find it very similar to the logic of "restoring" the Western Rite in Orthodoxy.

You are finding something that isn't there.

This mentiality of "one Orthodox rite" is relatively new: a little over 800 years ago, each Patriarchate having its rite was the rule.

The idea of defining Tradition as "what my grandparents did" is not an Orthodox one. Witness the Nikonian reforms (and no, the Protestants were not involved in that).

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Although the synods of Bulgaria, Servia, and Rumania have a certain dependence on the State (whose sanction is necessary for the promulgation of their edicts), there is not in their case anything like the shameless Erastianism of Russia and Greece. Between these two the only question is whether it be more advantageous for the Church to be ruled by an irresponsible tyrant or a Balkan Parliament. Lastly, it may be noticed, the church government by synod is a principle destined to flourish among the Orthodox. The secular governments of Orthodox countries encourage it and approve of it, for obvious reasons. It makes all the complicated questions of church establishment and endowment in the new Balkan States comparatively easy to solve; it has a fine air of democracy, constitutionalism, parliamentary government, that appeals enormously to people just escaped from the Turk and full of such notions. It seems then that the old patriarchal idea will linger on at Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem (though even here, in its original homes, it is getting modified in a constitutional direction), but that all new movement in the Orthodox Church will be more and more towards the principles borrowed by Peter the Great from Lutheranism. The vital argument against Holy Directing Synods is their opposition to the old tradition, to the strictly monarchic system of the Church of the Fathers. Strange that this argument should be ignored by people who boast so confidently of their unswerving fidelity to antiquity. "Our Church knows no developments", they told Mr. Palmer triumphantly in Russia. One could easily make a considerable list of Orthodox developments in answer. And one of the most obvious examples would be the system of Holy Synods. What, one might ask, would their Fathers have said of national Churches governed by committees of bishops chosen by the State and controlled by Government officials?

Perhaps God let the Czar abolish the patriarch for a reason? Perhaps God let the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be reduced to an agent of the Ottoman state for a reason. Maybe God let the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem be reduced to suffragans to the Phanar for a reason. So I guess we should abolish all the patriarchates and have their primates confined into a curia at the Phanar, servants of the Turkish Republic.

6. Why has the Orthodox Church of Finland not developed a "Western Rite" for former Lutherans? A case for 'doxing up the Lutheran Liturgy could be made just about as firmly as those who "Orthodoxized" the Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer in the so-called "Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon."

It could. The Eastern rite, however, was the first to evangelize Finland, from Karelia to the north of Sápmi/Lapland, and is native to Fennoscandia.

7. Perhaps the Finnish Orthodox think the best way to evangelize all those Lutherans is to stick with the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom?

Perhaps their overlords in the Phanar won't allow evangelizing all those Lutherans and Scandinavians .

The Phanariots in Scandinavia are dead (and I mean dead) set against evangelizing the North. When the various groups got together and organized a pan Orthodox jurisdiction in Sweden, and placed it under the Phanariots, there response was to turn it into a Greek jurisdiciton, and telling the others to form their own ethnic enclaves in Sweden. When the Nordik Catholic Church approached to be received into Orthodoxy, the Phanariots shut the door in their face: the Phanariot bishop stating that receving them would indicate "that Orthodoxy was for Scandinavians." The horror! The NCC ended up under the Polish National Catholics (btw, that same Phanariot bishop harrasses Eastern missions too. Wonder if there is a connection ;0).

I'm not sure if they have even bothered to convene their Episcopal Assembly yet.

8. Lastly, the Tridentine Mass belongs to Rome. I have far too much respect and genuine charity for my Roman Catholic friends and brethren to insult them by trying to do an "Orthodox" version of their Mass.

But you are quite comfortable with damning the whole Western Patriarchate to hell. Interesting.

How about some of that respect and genuine charity for your fellow Orthodox (you are Orhodox, no?).

The Latin Mass belongs to Rome, regardless of whatever language it is translated into.

Are you consistent in recognizing the rights of herestics and schismatics to Orthodox sees? Do you recognize the Latin supreme pontiff Benedict as Peter?

The Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory belongs to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Are you saying you recognize P. Benedict XVI as the head of that Church?

Btw, the Latin mass really belongs to North Africa (and hence the Pope of Alexandria) whence it came: Rome used Greek exclusively until c. 190, and did not replace it until c. 380.

And speaking of belonging, you are aware that all of the Orthodox Churches of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Romania and the Czech Lands and Slovakia belonged to Rome before the iconoclast emperors took them and gave them to the iconoclast patriarch of Constantinople. Should we give them back to the Vatican?

Oh, it is worse than that: the Roman one is the only one that doesn't emphasize the epiclesis. As the "Catholic Encyclopia, imprematur nihil obstat" confesses:

Quote

It is certain that all the old liturgies contained such a prayer. For instance, the Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, immediately after the recital of the words of Institution, goes on to the Anamnesis — "Remembering therefore His Passion..." — in which occur the words: "thou, the God who lackest nothing, being pleased with them (the Offerings) for the honour of Thy Christ, and sending down Thy Holy Spirit on this sacrifice, the witness of the Passion of the Lord Jesus, to manifest (opos apophene) this bread as the Body of Thy Christ and this chalice as the Blood of Thy Christ..." (Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, I, 21). So the Greek and Syrian Liturgies of St. James (ibid., 54, 88-89), the Alexandrine Liturgies (ibid., 134, 179), the Abyssinian Rite (ibid., 233), those of the Nestorians (ibid., 287) and Armenians (ibid., 439). The Epiklesis in the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is said thus: "We offer to Thee this reasonable and unbloody sacrifice; and we beg Thee, we ask Thee, we pray Thee that Thou, sending down Thy Holy Spirit on us and on these present gifts" (the Deacon says: "Bless, Sir the holy bread") "make this bread into the Precious Body of Thy Christ" (Deacon: "Amen. Bless, Sir, the holy chalice"): "and that which is in this chalice, the Precious Blood of Thy Christ" (Deacon: "Amen. Bless, Sir, both"), "changing [metabalon] them by Thy Holy Spirit" (Deacon: "Amen, Amen, Amen."). (Brightman, op. cit., I 386-387).

Nor is there any doubt that the Western rites at one time contained similar invocations. The Gallican Liturgy had variable forms according to the feast. That for the Circumcision was: "Hæc nos, Domine, instituta et præcepta retinentes suppliciter oramus uti hoc sacrificium suscipere et benedicere et sanctificare digneris: ut fiat nobis eucharistia legitima in tuo Filiique tui nomine et Spiritus sancti, in transformationem corporis ac sanguinis domini Dei nostri Jesu Christi unigeniti tui, per quem omnia creas..." (Duchesne, "Origines du culte chrétien", 2nd ed., Paris, 1898, p. 208, taken from St. Germanus of Paris, d. 576). There are many allusions to the Gallican Invocation, for instance St. Isidore of Seville (De eccl. officiis, I, 15, etc.). The Roman Rite too at one time had an Epiklesis after the words of Institution. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) refers to it plainly: "Quomodo ad divini mysterii consecrationem coelestis Spiritus adveniet, si sacerdos...criminosis plenus actionibus reprobetur?" ("Epp. Fragm.", vii, in Thiel, "Epp. Rom. Pont.", I, 486). Watterich (Der Konsekrationsmoment im h. Abendmahl, 1896, pp. 133 sq.) brings other evidences of the old Roman Invocation. he (p. 166) and Drews (Entstehungsgesch. des Kanons, 1902, p. 28) think that several secrets in the Leonine Sacramentary were originally Invocations (see article CANON OF THE MASS). Of the essential clause left out — our prayer: "Supplices te rogamus" (Duchesne, op. cit., 173-5). It seems that an early insistence on the words of Institution as the form of Consecration (see, for instance, Pseudo-Ambrose, "De Mysteriis", IX, 52, and "De Sacramentis", IV, 4, 14-15, 23; St. Augustine, Sermon 227) led in the West to the neglect and mutilation of the Epiklesis.

And then Ultramontanism raises its head:

Quote

The Catholic Church has decided the question by making us kneel and adore the Holy Eucharist immediately after the words of Institution, and by letting her old Invocation practically disappear.

In any event, why do you think that the supplices te rogamus prayer was included in the old Latin mass? Surely you don't believe that it is literally calling for an angel to come and take the gifts away into heaven, do you? I notice that you have not responded to any of my arguments about it up until this point.

9. Food for thought: If we can't use the Tridentine Mass in the Orthodox Church without tampering with it and changing it, why are we using it at all?

Fast from such food.

Food for thought: since the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil and the liturgics with them (e.g. the iconstasis) did not weather the heresies that sprung up without tampering and changing, why are we using them at all?

Why not just stick with the Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil that formed the piety of our people for generations?

The WRO already has formed the piety of generations of Orthodox.

In Alexandria and Antioch, the Divine Liturgies of St. James and St. Mark formed the piety of St. Anthony, Pope St. Athanasius, Pope St. Cyril, Patriarch St. Ignatius, Patriarch St. Theophilus, St. John of Damascus, etc. and the generations before and since them, until suppresed by the absentee "Patriarch of Antoch" Balsamon, who never set foot AFAIK outside of Constantinople. Why shouldn't we have stuck with them, rather than go with the rites of the upstart on the Bosphoros?

I enjoyed the article from Touchstone magazine about the Lutheran Church of Norway and the Nordic Catholic Church. Interesting.

One reason maybe it hasn't grown is very few are aware of it's existence. When I started inquiry into orthodoxy I took instructions at a Greek church. No mention of a western rite. After attending a Liturgy I knew how people felt attending the Latin mass if they weren't RC. I am going to my first western rite liturgy tomorrow. If I become orthodox and a church I am attending is in a situation where they are no longer in communion with world orthodoxy, would naturally find another jurisdiction. I am RC by heritage but this does not include the abortion which is the novus ordo. Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine. Is any one on this site going to say the western rite is not in communion with the Greek, Russian, ect. If so tell me and save me a trip. The only thing making me hesitate about converting is the troubling divisions I read about on this website and major differences for example how each jurisdiction accepts converts into orthodoxy. Pray for me I love what I have seen in Orthodoxy and need to make a prayerful decision.

Lord, have mercy!

Without knowing what Church you plan to attend, I can't say for sure if they're canonical, but rest assured that all canonical Western Rite parishes are in full communion with the worldwide Orthodox Church.

PS now I see. Houston. IIRC there are a couple WRO there, i.e. canonical.

« Last Edit: April 02, 2011, 09:29:04 PM by ialmisry »

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine.

Hmmmm. I'm rather suspicious of this claim. While it seems Byzantine culture took Roman culture in a slightly different direction than before (more Hellenized and greatly more Christian), it also seems like the West deviated from Roman culture much more than the Byzantines did because of the dominance of the Germanic barbarians.

Although I love the Roman rite and the other western rites (not necessarily those practiced by former episcopalians that call themselves "Western Orthodox" now) I still find it amazing that it didn't occur to the Westerners to give Sunday a somehow visible resurrectional/paschal character. I mean, you can look at the tridentine breviary and Sunday just doesn't have that, outside of Eastertide.

6. Why has the Orthodox Church of Finland not developed a "Western Rite" for former Lutherans?

I'm probably just about only Finn who thinks that Finnish WRO could be a realistic possibility. Theological arguments are irrelevant. To the most folks here Orthodoxy equals with Karelian, Russian and Greek heritage. Since WRO is not part of those it's an utopia.

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7. Perhaps the Finnish Orthodox think the best way to evangelize all those Lutherans is to stick with the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom?

The Finnish Church doesn't do much evangelism. On the other hand it seems that we don't have to since we gain converts anyway. My church has just found a respected place in Finnish society and in the past her energy has gone for maintaining even the most basic Orthodox traditions despite the pressure of Lutheran ethos and Finnish nationalism. If she couldn't convince her own faithful that they should baptize their children in their own Orthodox Church instead of Lutheran church I doubt that she had much interest in evangelism.

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But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.Leviticus 19:34

One reason maybe it hasn't grown is very few are aware of it's existence. When I started inquiry into orthodoxy I took instructions at a Greek church. No mention of a western rite. After attending a Liturgy I knew how people felt attending the Latin mass if they weren't RC. I am going to my first western rite liturgy tomorrow. If I become orthodox and a church I am attending is in a situation where they are no longer in communion with world orthodoxy, would naturally find another jurisdiction. I am RC by heritage but this does not include the abortion which is the novus ordo. Like it or not western Europe culture is the direct descendant of the Roman culture, not the Byzantine. Is any one on this site going to say the western rite is not in communion with the Greek, Russian, ect. If so tell me and save me a trip. The only thing making me hesitate about converting is the troubling divisions I read about on this website and major differences for example how each jurisdiction accepts converts into orthodoxy. Pray for me I love what I have seen in Orthodoxy and need to make a prayerful decision.

I've chewed on these questions of jursidiction plenty.

The more trouble I had with the jurisdictions issue, the deeper I dug, and I eventually came to the conclusion that the different jurisdictions are actually quite reflective of what the early church looked like. I'm quite certain that the churches in Ephesus, Rome, Egypt, Syria, etc., all had very distinct cultural flavors and characters, just as the Russian, Serbian, Greek, and even American modern jurisdictions have, and I think that there is something wonderful about this. I think it is a powerful testament to the Orthodox Faith that amidst all of these different traditions, the Faith itself is infinitely more uniform and consistent than in the more homogenous RC church, or even amongst 2 different Baptist congregations a mile away from one another somewhere in Carolina. I was approaching it as a RC, also, and I had to change the lens through which I saw these things.

This forum/website is a place for discussion, and as such, people's differences probably get emphasized much more than they should be, and this is not representative of real world Orthodoxy. It can be a great place to wrap one's mind around complicated questions, to fellowship a bit, and to learn about new things, but I will never hold it up as the shining example of what the true church in action is.

As for the Western Rite deal, for me, Western Rite/Eastern Rite is not an issue, as I'm interested only in being in the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and in Russia, anyways, there is no Western Rite that I know of, so I have yet to be exposed to it. When I return to America, I imagine I will attend a WR service at some point, happily. I come from a Western Rite tradition, and I think it's wonderful to have some of the beauty of the Western heritage restored into Orthodoxy, even though I will most likely worship in an Eastern Rite setting most of the time. I think the important point here that has been re-emphasized by many here is that the Western Rite is not the property of the RC church! That mentality basically suggests that there's no point in trying to evangelize Roman Catholics...

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It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.-Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

St. Tikhon (Bellavin)St. Raphael of Brooklyn (Hawaweeny)St. Nicholas of JapanRussian New-MartyrsSt. John the Wonderworker (Maximovitch)

This omits St. John of Chicago (Kochurov), who accompanied St. Tikhon on many missionary journeys to Episcopalian churches. St. John could be assumed to support his hierarch's Western Rite initiative -- but to my knowledge he did not specifically say so.

This list also overlooks the uncanonized divine healer Dom Denis Chambault, a holy monk who celebrated the Benedictine monastic office and the Liturgy of St. Gregory in France under the patronage of St. John the Wonderworker.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

St. Tikhon (Bellavin)St. Raphael of Brooklyn (Hawaweeny)St. Nicholas of JapanRussian New-MartyrsSt. John the Wonderworker (Maximovitch)

This omits St. John of Chicago (Kochurov), who accompanied St. Tikhon on many missionary journeys to Episcopalian churches. St. John could be assumed to support his hierarch's Western Rite initiative -- but to my knowledge he did not specifically say so.

This list also overlooks the uncanonized divine healer Dom Denis Chambault, a holy monk who celebrated the Benedictine monastic office and the Liturgy of St. Gregory in France under the patronage of St. John the Wonderworker.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

We are actually planning 3 [hierarchical] celebrations at present: in May at Christminster, in October at the conference, and then at the church of Christ the King in Tullytown, for their patronal festival.

Fr. Anthony Bondi added:

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Bishop Jerome has suggested that the celebration of Christ the King be November 27th as the actual date of December 4th might be a conflict for him.

I just attended st. Paul Antiochian western rite liturgy. The people there were very welcoming, and the liturgy was very familiar(St Gregory). I will start attending this service with the goal of becoming a catechumen.It was because of this website that I discovered the western rite. Thanks Anne God bless you.

I hate my iPad it fills in words for me. I meant thanks AND God Bless I don't even know someone named Anne

Haha. I understand completely.

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It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.-Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

St. Tikhon (Bellavin)St. Raphael of Brooklyn (Hawaweeny)St. Nicholas of JapanRussian New-MartyrsSt. John the Wonderworker (Maximovitch)

This omits St. John of Chicago (Kochurov), who accompanied St. Tikhon on many missionary journeys to Episcopalian churches. St. John could be assumed to support his hierarch's Western Rite initiative -- but to my knowledge he did not specifically say so.

This list also overlooks the uncanonized divine healer Dom Denis Chambault, a holy monk who celebrated the Benedictine monastic office and the Liturgy of St. Gregory in France under the patronage of St. John the Wonderworker.

You forgot St. Gorazd of Prague.

I didn't know that, thanks!

I was going to add that but I hesitate because the Church of Czechoslovakia went Eastern rite, and I don't know St. Gorazd's role or opinion on that.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

If there is absolutely no controversy among Orthodox Churches over the use of the Western rite, then why does the EP and Church of Greece not approve of its usage? I remember reading how the GOA's Metropolitan of San Francisco forbide his priest from serving with WR clergy.

I understand that that the WR are deemed Orthodox "by default", but the issue of their existence is not so cut and dry as WR advocates would have us believe.

It is possible that, in the future an Ecumenical Council could either confirm or abolish the WR in Orthodoxy. IMHO, these rites really shouldn't have been created in the first place without the permission of, at least a Pan Orthodox Synod.

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Men may dislike truth, men may find truth offensive and inconvenient, men may persecute the truth, subvert it, try by law to suppress it. But to maintain that men have the final power over truth is blasphemy, and the last delusion. Truth lives forever, men do not.-- Gustave Flaubert

If there is absolutely no controversy among Orthodox Churches over the use of the Western rite, then why does the EP and Church of Greece not approve of its usage? I remember reading how the GOA's Metropolitan of San Francisco forbide his priest from serving with WR clergy.

Latinophobia after the 4th Crusade?

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It is possible that, in the future an Ecumenical Council could either confirm or abolish the WR in Orthodoxy. IMHO, these rites really shouldn't have been created in the first place without the permission of, at least a Pan Orthodox Synod.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

If there is absolutely no controversy among Orthodox Churches over the use of the Western rite, then why does the EP and Church of Greece not approve of its usage? I remember reading how the GOA's Metropolitan of San Francisco forbide his priest from serving with WR clergy.

Does the EP always involve himself in these matters? Why does the Church of Greece need to approve if none of its parishioners want to use the WR?

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I understand that that the WR are deemed Orthodox "by default", but the issue of their existence is not so cut and dry as WR advocates would have us believe.

We are Orthodox for the same reason anyone else is Orthodox. What do you mean?

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It is possible that, in the future an Ecumenical Council could either confirm or abolish the WR in Orthodoxy. IMHO, these rites really shouldn't have been created in the first place without the permission of, at least a Pan Orthodox Synod.

They weren't created, they have been around for centuries. Were the liturgies of Ss John Chrysostom and Basil approved by this same process?

If there is absolutely no controversy among Orthodox Churches over the use of the Western rite, then why does the EP and Church of Greece not approve of its usage?

Actually, there might be one Western (Gallican) rite parish under a Ukrainian bishop of the EP in Argentina. At least that's what I was told. That's how this supposedly WRO church look like (picture from the bishop's visit):

yes. The Church was mostly WRO, including the saint, for the first decade or so. The switch had something to do with the return of Carpatho-Rusyns to Orthodoxy in Czechoslovakia IIRC.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

And you are right, the WRO do not need the EP or Greek Church's approval (though it got approval from prior EPs). They get a little big for their britches every once and a while, but even they have admitted, amidst bemoaning, that the WRO are canonical Orthodox under canonical bishops.

The Orthodox do prefer to do things by consensus, but won't let the Church be held hostage.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

If there is absolutely no controversy among Orthodox Churches over the use of the Western rite, then why does the EP and Church of Greece not approve of its usage? I remember reading how the GOA's Metropolitan of San Francisco forbide his priest from serving with WR clergy.

Only if they vested in Western vestments. If they vested in oriental robes, there was no problem.

It is possible that, in the future an Ecumenical Council could either confirm or abolish the WR in Orthodoxy. IMHO, these rites really shouldn't have been created in the first place without the permission of, at least a Pan Orthodox Synod.

They can abolisth the rites of Constantinople too. The suppression of the rites of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem wasn't done by any synod, why should the revival of the rites of the Western Orthodox?

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

I was going to add that but I hesitate because the Church of Czechoslovakia went Eastern rite, and I don't know St. Gorazd's role or opinion on that.

When and why this happened?

Answered above, AFAIK.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

The adoption of a new rite by the Church is an important matter, far too important to be decided on by a particular local Church alone. Since Orthodoxy has no Papacy or Vatican to boss everyone around, decisions of such a grave nature should be reached by the consensus of the whole Body of Christ (A Synod of bishops representing all canonical Orthodox Churches).

It is true that local Churches have the right to use the Economia to help bring in converts and help them adapt, but the creation of entirely new Liturgies, supposedly based on defunct ones from centuries past goes way beyond such Economia. It really is a question that should have been decided by the WHOLE Church and not just a few branches of Her acting independently.

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Men may dislike truth, men may find truth offensive and inconvenient, men may persecute the truth, subvert it, try by law to suppress it. But to maintain that men have the final power over truth is blasphemy, and the last delusion. Truth lives forever, men do not.-- Gustave Flaubert

Wonderful! Beautiful picture as well. I look forward to seeing pictures from this Pontifical Mass. I look forward to the day that the WR receives its own permanent episcopate, it will be a great step forward!

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"Hades is not a place, no, but a state of the soul. It begins here on earth. Just so, paradise begins in the soul of a man here in the earthly life. Here we already have contact with the divine..." -St. John, Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, Homily On the Sunday of Orthodoxy

The Orthodox Church has not been thinking since the very beginning that rites are the issue of the whole Church. What is more there are not a few branches acted for the WR but the few which did not. The Churches which have or used to have WR Parishes are: Antioch, Russia, Serbia, Romania, Poland and Czech lands and Slovakia which have about the 70% of the combined EO believers.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

The adoption of a new rite by the Church is an important matter, far too important to be decided on by a particular local Church alone. Since Orthodoxy has no Papacy or Vatican to boss everyone around, decisions of such a grave nature should be reached by the consensus of the whole Body of Christ (A Synod of bishops representing all canonical Orthodox Churches).

It isn't a new rite: what do you think Rome celebrated when it was Orthodox?

It is true that local Churches have the right to use the Economia to help bring in converts and help them adapt, but the creation of entirely new Liturgies, supposedly based on defunct ones from centuries past goes way beyond such Economia. It really is a question that should have been decided by the WHOLE Church and not just a few branches of Her acting independently.

The WHOLE Church was involved when this got started in earnest in the mid 1800's. The only one's who were not were part of the Serbs and Romanians, who became involved later and had their own WRO in France.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

The adoption of a new rite by the Church is an important matter, far too important to be decided on by a particular local Church alone. Since Orthodoxy has no Papacy or Vatican to boss everyone around, decisions of such a grave nature should be reached by the consensus of the whole Body of Christ (A Synod of bishops representing all canonical Orthodox Churches).

It is true that local Churches have the right to use the Economia to help bring in converts and help them adapt, but the creation of entirely new Liturgies, supposedly based on defunct ones from centuries past goes way beyond such Economia. It really is a question that should have been decided by the WHOLE Church and not just a few branches of Her acting independently.

If local Churches can glorify people (i.e., add them to their lists of saints) I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be allowed to (re)introduce Liturgies. But anyway, in the late 1920s, the Polish Orthodox Church felt it was necessary to consult Constantinopole before introducing WR. She did and got an approval.